Welcome to the Maunie of Ardwall blog

This is the blog of Maunie of Ardwall. After a six-year adventure sailing from Dartmouth to Australia, we are now back in Britain.

Friday 29 May 2015

Photos from the passage

Dawn in the Savusavu anhorage. The yellow catamaran is our friends Sel Citron

We've had a busy couple of days since arriving in Fiji. Once again we've found that coming back to a previously-visited port makes things so much easier so we sorted the paperwork, got our internet and found some cold beers very quickly. It was great to see friends here, particularly when we saw Tom, Colin and Damian who were having a busy day transferring diesel in jerrycans to refuel their boats - they were hugely kind and delivered 100 litres to us too, saving us a lot of hassle. We celebrated that evening with good food and drink so slept very well!

The following morning we managed a team effort to take about a dozen gas bottles from 6 boats to be refilled so apart from effecting a repair to our water system (today's task) and solving an air leak on the dinghy (ditto) we feel we're doing pretty well. It's great to be back here.

Here are a few photos from the passage:

"Chafe is your enemy" - damaged spinnaker guy caused by the rope chafing in the end fitting of the pole on the first night 
Anti-chafe solution - a snatch block on a dyneema (tough rope) loop allows the rope to move a little without damage
A circling Albatross

A less-successful flight - a stranded flying fish


A Good Cloud, delivering rain (which missed us) and some wind

Evening light, with a crescent moon just visible at the top of the photo
We plan to be here a couple more days - we're waiting for our cruising permit which should arrive on Monday, we hope - so we'll visit the brilliant vegetable market this morning to stock up on greens.

Finally we received some wonderful news from home this morning - we are Great Aunt and Great Uncle once again with the arrival of Erin Florence to Di's nephew Paul and his wife Kaylie. Congratulations to them both!

3 comments:

  1. Awesome job, mates!!! And terrific pix as well. Give our best to Dolly, Simi, and the gang at Copra Shed!!! Cheers from freezing NZ!!!

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    1. Thanks Adam - great to be back here, if a little hot (sorry!). Everything pretty much the same and Dolly's still running a tight ship at Coprashed. Hope Cindi's recovery is still going to plan - watch out for the ice and snow! G&Dx

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  2. Gorgeous photos. Keep 'em coming! Trish x

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